


I am Found

by katietailored



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, I saw it on the West End and cried a lot, Trains, also i love rambling about international politics, also this is totally not a self insert, also yeah probably a pretty slow burn, basically a retelling of parts of the brick, it's like a slow burn but for character background that's my jam, just a lot of fluffy feeling, such a self insert victor would be proud, they're like OCs but also the same people from the brick
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-05-27
Packaged: 2019-11-16 16:56:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18098384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katietailored/pseuds/katietailored
Summary: What happens when the person at the theater next to you sits down late and cheers a little too obnoxiously, but has something inexpressibly enchanting about them? Or what if the person next to you looks like they wear their heart on their sleeve and smell like flowers and have a smile like the sun?





	1. From Today

**Author's Note:**

> I'm living in London right now and between seeing Les Mis on the West End and loving the trains and being inspired by the city, this happened. Also this is the first thing I've ever written so yeah and I hope it's not uncouth to change names around but I did it anyway

**7:03 PM.**

 

It was January fifteenth, the night of the 2019  _ Les Misérables _ London cast change. Theatres were always crowded on cast-change nights, so it was no surprise to Natalie that the Queen’s Theater was already packed to the breaking point.

 

Natalie was a big believer in getting to theaters early—sometimes too early, when the house wasn’t even open. Most people would get drinks at the bar, but she didn’t do that. It clouded her judgement. Besides, she knew  _ Les Misérables _ could wreak havoc on a person's emotions while sober—she couldn't imagine the mental state she'd be in if she saw the show even a little...well, not-sober.

 

She wiggled into the tightly-packed aisle, apologizing with a pleasant smile. “Sorry, sorry, can I squeeze through? Sorry, thanks."

 

With a sigh of contentment, Natalie dropped into her seat, smack in the middle of the first row of the Upper Circle. She liked sitting all the way up in the nosebleed seats, just under the chandelier, where nothing was beyond her view. She planned on leaning on the edge of the velvet balcony and losing herself in the show without a care for the strangers in the seats beside her.

 

**7:21 PM.**

 

Natalie turned her phone off and flipped through the freshly-printed programme for the new cast. Javert, Fantine, and M. Thénardier hadn’t changed since she'd last seen the show—just two nights earlier—but, she noticed, there were two ensemble girls who had been promoted from swings to full time ensemble. For the new cast, there were five West End debuts, and the girls who alternated between Little Cosette and Little Eponine were making their professional debuts.

 

Those little details made Natalie smile.  _ Always have to support your ensembles and your kids. Never take them for granted. The show would never run without them. _ She could almost hear her dad telling her about the importance of valuing the whole ensemble when she had complained about not seeing the high-profile lead in a tour of  _ Light in the Piazza.  _

 

**7:28 PM.**

 

The ghostly sketch of Cosette had appeared on the curtain. Programme now tucked away in her purse, Natalie settled in for the show to start.  _ Find something that brings together the space, audience, actors and story _ , her dad had said,  _ that’s all you really need to know when you write about theater _ .

 

Natalie knew that seeing  _ Les Misérables  _ warranted plenty of metal preparation. Sure, she’d seen it four times, plus a couple of regional productions, but it never got any easier.

 

That was why it annoyed her—only just slightly—when the seats to her left all shuffled to let one last person into the row. The seat next to her had been empty; she'd been planning on putting her bag there so that she could lean even closer to the edge. She didn’t pay attention when the person sat down, because just then, the prologue started. If she was already blinking back tears, who could blame her?

 

~

 

**7: 29 PM.**

 

It wasn’t Adam’s fault that he was late. Well—maybe it was a  _ little _ bit his fault, but the majority of the blame went to his friends, who'd insisted on getting a so-called quick drink at the pub outside the theater. Of course, the 'quick drink' had turned into three, and before they knew it, they had to dash so that they wouldn’t miss the West End debut of one of their friends.

 

Four were along the edges of the Dress Circle, and two were content to stand together in the back of the Stalls.  _ Not like they’re really going to pay attention to the whole show _ , he thought,  _ they’ve probably got other priorities. _

 

Adam, luckily, had scored a seat in the center of the Upper Circle, and he was glad for it. Whatever the rest of his slightly-intoxicated friends were there to do, he was there for Esther.

 

Esther Towers had joined their university’s debate team the year before, a lonely theater major among law students. She was small and meek-looking, but, as Adam and his friends soon learned, her appearance only helped her to crush her opponents. She could go from quiet to commanding in seconds, unwinding opposing arguments with poise and calculated blows. Her arguments on fishing rights in the Arctic were legendary, and those stories (both truthful and hyper-inflated) were still being told. In just one semester, she'd become one of the most feared debaters on the tournament circuit.

 

Adam and his friends had welcomed her with open arms. They'd hoped for complete dedication to the team—God knew they needed it—but they knew most of Esther's time was claimed by rehearsal. But somehow she was able to manage all the preparation work before they went to conferences. How she did it, they didn’t know. There was a running joke among the debaters that she just didn't sleep. When Esther got the news, four months before, that her West End debut would be as Eponine in  _ Les Misérables _ , the team partied for three days straight, and then promised to see her first show.

 

He was glad they'd managed to keep their promise—even if they had only made it in by the skin of their teeth. The lights had gone dim as soon as Adam had dropped into his seat, so he didn’t have the time or light to check out on his surroundings. Now, with the stage coming to life, booming with explosive sound, he caught furtive glimpses of his neighbors out of the corner of his eye.

 

To his right there was a girl, eyes laser-focused on the unfolding show. On his left, there was a tourist group, stuffing selfie sticks into their bags. He'd never understood selfie sticks. Why buy something to fulfill the role of a perfectly-functioning arm? Adam resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

 

Adam glanced back at the girl on his right. She wasn’t quite singing along under her breath, but her face gave the impression that she knew every single word to the show and every single song was an emotional roller coaster for her.  __ As he watched, he saw a tear run down her cheek.

Adam's gaze snapped back to the stage. Esther would kill him if she found out he'd missed her debut because he'd been too busy staring at a girl.

 

~

**9:34pm**

“One Day More” always made her cry. There was always a different reason every time she saw the show. The first time it had been the culminating chorus of six verses into the awe-inspiring final notes. Another time, when she and her dad had been front row, it was the iconic block step march of the ensemble. This time, she noticed how the shadows of the ensemble were traced in golden light on the backdrop, giving them the appearance of being joined with many others. 

The bright house lights that came on after the song ended to signal intermission always seemed a little cruel.

She took a moment to breathe and blink before remembering that she had a job to do. Her dad was the official theater critic of the two of them, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t come up with her own ideas to run by him. He valued her ideas and sometimes found a way to work them into his reviews that appeared in his column in The Standard the next day. Her biggest accomplishment was from Heathers the past summer—“How to Reclaim your Narrative” had been her idea and so read the subheading.

This time, it wasn’t a general thought so much as a single lyric that had stuck in her head. It came from an arguably sarcastic moment in the show, but right now to Natalie it was far from sarcastic.

“Do we fight for the right to a night at the opera now?” 

She mouthed the words as she dug through her bag for any bit of paper that she had to write the line down. Not like she really needed to write it down since she knew the whole song by heart, but this way the thought would not be occupying any extra space in her head. Here it was, 2019, and she realized that she did not know the answer to this question. Her mind, studying international policy for the past two years, should have been able to prove an answer to this question like it could solve other theoretical conundrums set to her by professors.

But what were we fighting for? Really, what is it? Is it Brexit closure? For a sense of more morality and understanding in politics? An answer to the nuclear question that had been posed in August of 1945? By now she had found paper and a pen and hurriedly scribbled the line on an old Pret A Manger receipt. If this line was the only thing she could contribute to her dad, she would be happy with it. The line poised such a timeless question—valid in the June Rebellion, Vietnam, seemingly the entirety of the Middle East region, and now in this messy era of globalization.   
  


~

 

**9:35pm**

_ Wow, this is incredible. I can’t believe that it took me this long to know about this.  _ Adam wasn’t much of a theater goer, but this show might require a few visits to receive its full impact and power. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and opened up the debate team’s group chat. Someone had changed its name from “Yelling Louder than You 2k19” to “Holy Shit Look at Esther Go!” There already were sixteen messages since the start of intermission—the group down in the Dress Circle were discussing the show in all caps, their sucky eye lines to the stage, and their reactions to any of Esther’s appearances. She hadn’t seen any of the messages yet, but they were there for her anyway. He knew that she was probably in no state to be checking her phone; regardless, he joined in the all caps celebration of her success.

He was interrupted once or twice by the tourists leaving and then returning from the house bar. The smell of cheap red wine caught his nose and made it wrinkle disdainfully. The girl next to him was digging through her bag and pulled out a pen and paper. She scribbled something down and then sat back in her chair, apparently content with what she had written. He caught a quick glance of what she had written. It was just a quote—“Do we fight for the right to a night at the opera now?” Interesting. She tucked the paper back down into her bag and turned here focus back to the stage. He thought about small talk and how to engage her in it, but he didn’t for the fear that he would break the concentration that she held. 

He turned back to his phone to see that not only had Eric and Spencer joined in from their standing room, Esther had seen the messages and replied with “thanks guys you’re the best I’m so freaking out also wildly tired.” Spencer then had followed up “we wait for you after for more drinks, we celebrate! Eric is buying first.” Knowing what discussion and argument would come next, Adam clicked his phone off for Act 2.

 

~

 

**10:58pm**

After “Drink With Me” in Act 2, Natalie never fully stopped crying. She never did. Experienced as she was with this show, it made the second act even worse—knowing what was coming, knowing what would be revealed when the barricade turned around. That’s what’s beautiful with this show, she thought in a dark moment, there’s still power left after seeing it for the first time. Again, more cyclical thoughts on what are we fighting for filled her head. She knew that this would be the idea she would talk to her dad about tonight, and it would also haunt her for probably the next fifteen months. It’s a valid question, and she knew that she would never come up with an answer that would satisfy her.

  
Suddenly she found herself up on her feet as the bows started. The standing ovation had started even before the lights went down on the last song, but she had missed that while stuck in her own head. Like all the times she had seen the show before, her clapping was interrupted a couple times when she had to wipe the remaining tears off her face. The guy next to her let out the biggest woops when Eponine bowed. She looked quizzically over at him, and he looked taken aback as if she was accusing him of breaking some unspoken theatre etiquette.

  
“I know her. It’s her debut.”

  
“Ah, well congrats then!”

  
They both went back to clapping as the new cast went off stage, came back on for more bows, left, came back, and then the curtain finally came down. As she was waiting to shuffle out of the row of seats, she heard a voice behind her.

  
“You’ve seen it before?”

  
“Yeah, this was my fifth time. You?” She was good at this theater small talk.

  
“Nah, this was my first.”

  
“You liked it though?”

  
“Incredible.”

  
Finally it was her turn to slip into the aisle towards the stairs. They guy behind her was one of those black trench coat types; basic, but that was kind of her weakness. She made it to the exit and was able to put her coat on. When she did so, she ended up catching his eye one last time. She smiled at him and then disappeared into the crowd and the night.   
  


~

**11:04pm**

For a first timer at Les Miserables, the second act will most likely take your heart out, stomp it around in a back alley, and then hand you the remains when the curtain falls. Or at least, that was what it felt like for Adam. The soaring songs, the gut wrenching final movement of the barricade, the soft moments in between heartache. Now he knew why this show still existed and sold out every night for the past 34 years. There really is something in the story that comes alive within you and makes you realize that our situation today is not unlike that of the June Rebellion. Faith, love, fighting for those who can’t, and having the determination to follow your convictions to the very end.

It was a lot to take in, to say the least.

He was on his feet the moment the lights dimmed. He couldn’t really believe what he had just seen, or that one of his closest friends was getting to do this show for at least the next year of his life.  _ Magic, pure magic. _ Then Esther came running onto the stage with the lady who played Fantine. He let the whoops rip out, and he heard more coming from somewhere below him. He saw Esther wave all the way up to the seats where he sat. He clapped his hands over his head as a signal that he had seen her.

The girl on his left turned to him with an interested look on her face.  _ Did I do something? Is it really that rude to cheer loudly? _ He decided he had to back himself up.

“I know her. It’s her debut.”

He didn’t know if she had heard him, but at least now he had tried to explain his possibly rude behavior. But she did hear him, because she responded.

“Ah, well congrats then!”

Then the applause seemed to double in volume as the cast left and came back on the stage a couple more times to bow. The curtain finally came down, which was probably good, because his hands were starting to hurt from all the clapping. He had to take a moment just to stand and look once more at the stage where everything had happened. Even now, it was still a lot to take in. He picked his black coat up from his chair and pulled out his phone to see what the time was. Closer to 11 than 10:30. But that was fine, because the favorite pub of the entire debate team didn’t close until 2. They’d have plenty of time to discuss what they had seen and toast Esther a couple of times.

As the girl next to him gathered her coat, it kinda bumped his hand holding his phone. She didn’t realize it since she was trying to get out into the stairwell. As she adjusted it over her arm, he caught a whiff of not musty coat smell, but a darker, more floral scent. It wasn’t one of those cheap floral smells, but one that read more as “I’m mature and I still like flowers and there’s nothing wrong with that and if you think there is a problem with that you better just leave.”

His small talk idea returned to him from where he had left it at intermission, so he tried.

“You’ve seen it before?”

“Yeah, this was my fifth time. You?”

_ Wow, five times. But that’s believable. I wonder if you could see this show a dozen times and still be as moved by it as when you saw it the first time _ , he thought.

“Nah, this was my first.”

“You liked it though?”

If he tried hard enough, he could see the faintest tracks of mascara under her eyes.  _ A dark floral perfume type of girl, but still able to let herself get lost in emotions that she’d been through before _ . He realized that he’d taken three seconds too long to respond so he let the first thought that came to mind out.

“Incredible.”

  
She had made it to the stair case and started her descent. He followed the flow of the crowd and was able to keep sight of her head as the masses left. She stopped a little off to the side of the door to put her coat.  _ The coat that smells like flowers, _ he remembered,  _ it’s grey too, with a popped collar. _ As she pulled it on, her head turned back towards the stairs, and she caught him looking at her. She smiled in his direction. Before he could process that smile and return it, she was gone.


	2. Every Day

Natalie tried to never drink coffee on the go. There was something unholy about such an act—sure, coffee was convenient, but the ceremony and ritual of the drink seemed to get utterly lost when you have to chug it fast while on the train or rushing down the sidewalk. That being said, Natalie didn’t have a boring life.

 

No, she kept herself incredibly busy with her university schedule and also her time freelancing as a photographer. She was studying global policy, and she wanted to be a photographer for the United Nations one day. The UN or Reuters. That was her plan.  


She had grown up in many different places and had seen a great many things, not all of which were good and wholesome. She and her dad had been living in Germany during the great debates over refugees and immigration. He was writing for the paper, and she was usually right behind him with a camera or working as a driver in the refugee camps outside of Manching. Then her dad’s work had called him back to write for The Times in England, so she had to leave her work and the friends she had made.

 

But coffee was never supposed to be had while running to and fro. She was never able to hold herself to this standard, but she always wondered what her life could be like if she could give herself that moment with a steaming cup of coffee…in front of the coffee shop window…at a table with a white tablecloth…and some real flowers just peeking out of a bud vase .

 

She chased the seconds, the moments, the brief instances of time where reality seemed to suspend itself into pure emotion. Those were the moments found before the final, legendary notes in musicals. Seeing a bridge illuminated with its street lights in the rain at midnight in a foreign city. Pulling out of a train station moments before sunrise. She didn’t know what it meant to be tied down to a singular emotion brought about by just one person. For her, it was better to be of something.

 

That something right now was her growing ability to think and to question in an educated manner. Now she was starting to get the tools and methods and arguments to work for her as she went through her studies of international policy. Anyone can read a headline, but she took pride in being able to start to think about the deeper implications behind a headline.

 

Speaking of headlines, she wondered what her father had decided on for the headline of the Les Mis review. It would have to be short, so it couldn’t be the full lyric that she had pointed him towards. She envisioned whatever the headline would be, tucked neatly into the column of her idea in a paper that thousands would read tomorrow, and a warm sense of pride swelled up through her heart and into her mind.

 

Caught in the reverie brought about by her thoughts and the fact that it was 1am, she remembered the guy she had been sitting next to that night. The cute, trench coat guy. _Yeah, he was nice to look at,_ she thought (slightly self-indulgently). _But he also had that look in his eye of someone who knew that the meaning of Les Mis was much more than just the story. I wonder what other thoughts he had of the whole show._

 

The moon, brighter than most nights, caught the corner of her window and flung a patch of moonlight onto her wall. Now almost asleep, Natalie remembered one more moment from the show that would have done well for the review. “And it wasn’t a dream / Not a dream / After all.”

 

She laughed at her past self for not paying attention to those lines before, but truth be told, she was too busy trying to quietly blow her nose than watch the scene between Marius, Cossette, and Valjean. “Every Day”, that moment in the show, was vastly important, but it also was a good opportunity to blow your nose and gather yourself before the finale.

 

Was it only a dream, or was it real? She fell asleep.

 

 

~

 

One would be able to pick Adam out of his group of friends pretty easily. He almost perfectly fit in with them, which made him even more obviously different.  His main difference from them was that he would take two seconds to think before jumping into an argument while they would take, on average, three-quarters of a second. Not to say that he wasn’t smart, but he just wanted to be able to give himself a chance to see what he was getting into. And not like his friends were completely rash and off the deep end, either. They were just cut from ever so slightly different cloth than Adam.

 

He thought a lot about the concept of oblivion—what it was, its consequences, and how he could ever avoid it. He had grown up in some state off it. His mother had died when he was very little and his father didn’t want to deal with him, so he spent his life bouncing from school to school while living with his aunt (who he never really liked that much anyway). Now that he was about ready to take control off his life, the concept of oblivion continued to haunt him even more so now than ever.

 

You could have your whole life planned out and not deviate from it ever. That was his plan. Finish his studies at university, work, climb up the ladder a couple of rungs until he could live and subsequently retire comfortability, then retreat somewhere in the country where the only thing that mattered was an internet connection and somewhat of a close proximity to a train station should he ever want to go somewhere.

 

How do you combat oblivion? He worked tirelessly at his history studies, spending hours on the library floor pouring over stuffy old books. His background in the theory of revolution helped him greatly prepare for debates with the rest of the team. That’s where the majority of his time was split, between studies and debate research. He had found them from their old flyer in the library elevator—his decision to fall in with them was a way of combating the curse of oblivion. Sure, he was well versed in theories, but he realized that he needed some way to be able to defend them.

 

 

That had been a year and a half ago, and he was now (happily) so involved that it had brought him to a West End theater to celebrate the success of one of the most successful members. And while he greatly enjoyed celebrating Esther, he could not get that girl and her floral perfume out of his head. And her smile!

 

~

 

Natalie’s dad completely agreed with her thought for the review of the new cast. She knew that the idea was in safe hands as he started to write the column. It’s not like Les Mis needed another glowing review to make sure it would still be running in six weeks, but it was always nice to keep the rest of the world knowledgeable with how the longest running musical ever was faring. And since he didn’t need to get into the nitty gritty details of the production, he could spend more time waxing philosophical. Natalie knew that the next morning, when she grabbed a paper outside her Tube stop, she would see a column written by “M. Madeline” on the success of the new cast of Les Miserables.

 

Why he needed to write under a pseudonym was still a little bit of a mystery to her, though. He used his real name when writing on politics. Maybe he just wanted to be able to enjoy theatre anonymously and without having to worry about being accosted by both viewers and actors.

 

~

 

It was customary for Adam to walk to his train with coffee in one hand and a paper in the other. That was nothing distinguishing; most Londoners would have something of the same arrangement as they commuted into the city. But as he was flipping through the back half of the paper as the train came screaming into Euston, something caught his eye and almost made him spill his coffee. There, in the theatre section (under the headline “Still the good fight”), was a new review for Les Mis that started with the words “Do we fight for a right to a night at the opera now?”

 

The girl from last night. Her words scribbled on a bit of paper. Now in a newspaper. Had he found her?

 

He looked back towards the heading of the article for a by-line. All that met his glance there was a slightly ominous looking “M. Madeline.” Weird.

 

As soon as he got off the train and had service on his phone again he called Esther. She would know, probably. She knew an incredible amount about the professional theatre industry even though she was still only just getting into it.

 

“Esther, who is this M. Madeline? I’m getting nothing from Google besides all their theater reviews.”

 

Esther laughed and most likely had that look on her face she got when she knew something that the rest of the committee she was debating didn’t know.

 

“Oh, him? He’s Anthony Johns, the guy who writes on politics sometimes. He likes to go by a fake name for his reviews. Who knows why, it’s just his thing.”

 

Adam had a name of the critic, but it wasn’t the girl he had sat next to and had subsequently thought about all night.

 

“Do you know him at all? Does he do like, interviews or something?”

 

“Yeah, I could recognize his face but I’ve never met him personally. Why?”  


“Does he have a daughter or something?”

 

“I mean, maybe? I don’t know? Honestly, Adam, I try to not read reviews since people can be so stupid in the comments section. Anyway, I want to go back to sleep since you lot kept me up so late last night and I have a show tonight. Ya know, I’m officially on the West End now. We cool kids need our sleep and don’t have to be awake before noon. Byeee.” She was, of course, just being annoying and sarcastically complaining about her lot in life.

 

“Oh yeah sorry bye. Sorry to have awoken the great actress.”

 

Where would he find her? He couldn’t really just call up the paper and ask if JVJ had a daughter; he’d look like a creeper. And the city was too big--it was a chance in a thousand that he would find her again.

 

Two cups of coffee and two history lectures later, Adam’s day was done. He thought about going to meet Craig (usually called C because of a hatred of the name) after his economics lecture let out in half an hour, but he was still slightly feeling the effects of yesterday’s late night. _Just go back to the flat and crash until C gets back_. Like all kinda broke university students, they were all sharing flats and dorm rooms to make ends meet. C was nowhere near the short straw in roommates from the pool of the debate team, so Adam didn’t have to live miserably.

 

Book bag over his shoulders, he headed for his train. He discovered that he had left his headphones not in his usual jacket pocket--only his Oyster card was there when he checked his pockets. Rush hours trains in London were terrible, and he had the worst of them all—a northern journey on the Northern Line from King’s Cross. _C’est la vie_. One nice thing about today was that he was able to make it onto the first train that came through the station; most days he had to wait for the second or third one for there to be space for him. This train he found a spot to stand right at the very front of the car against the window. Head down with the typical commuter eyes-glazed-over stare, he waited for the train to lurch out of the station.

 

~

 

Natalie didn’t have class today, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t keep herself busy. She leisurely spent the morning in a few shops trying to find a new pair of trainers for the spring but didn’t have any luck. After lunch, she put in a few productive hours in her favorite library working on her research on the fair trade coffee movement for her ethics class. When she reached the point where her brain couldn’t think in a discernable straight line, it was time to go. _Damn, rush hour. Nice timing_ , she thought. The idea crossed her mind of staying in town for another hour, but that just kinda seemed like a waste. Trains would be crowded, but she could tough it out.

 

She joined the masses of people in the trek towards Euston and was able to navigate through the loop of people who were waiting for their big trains to have platforms announced. _That’s my issue with this station, the Underground crowds have to cut through all these people who seem to not understand that it’s RUSH HOUR and stand literally everywhere. Ugh_.

 

The escalators down to the Northern Line were full, but the up escalators were always more crowded. The queues to get off the platforms were incredibly packed. What always made Natalie smile a little inside was just how politely resigned to their fates everyone was who had to wait. She enjoyed her little thoughts about large masses of people and the anonymity that came from being in such a random group every single day while commuting. She was in no means a maths student, but she knew that the odds of being on the same train with the same people were extremely small. _Maybe those odds don’t even exist at all._

She had just missed the train when she got onto the platform, so she had to wait for the next one. The gust of wind that came two minutes later signaled the arrival of the next train. The wind seemed to blow the thought of the guy from Les Mis into her mind again. She kinda smiled to herself and wondered what his life was like.  She was able to slip onto this train even though it was already so full. There was a space right in the corner of the front of the car. Nowhere to lean, but that’s what the handrails were for. As she reached her hand up to hold on before the train lurched away—

“My god, it’s you.” The surprise in her voice was evident, but there was also a note of joy.

She was looking right into the eyes of the exact same guy from the night before. His eyes sparkled back at her. Then the train started to move and she felt herself flung backward by the momentum. But then the train’s speed leveled out and she was able to stand upright. She was suddenly very aware of how close they were given the push from all the other people on the train. Neither of them had dropped the gaze of the other.

“Hi,” she started, but then, true to the Northern Line, the wheels started to scream as it came into the turn towards Camden Town. He shook his head as a signal of not being able to hear her. She felt her face flush as she ducked it down in a laugh. When she looked back at him, he was laughing too.

 And in that moment, she realized what the stories meant about fate. Things like this just don’t happen. This moment must be sent by the heavens; who was she to not let this fate run its course.

The train doors opened, and while it wasn’t her stop, she moved towards the door. She motioned with her hand behind her back for him to follow her. As she stepped off the train, she felt his fingers close over hers, a gesture making sure that they couldn’t lose each other in the crowd like what had happened last night outside of the theater.

~

I mean, what are the odds even? A mundane commute turned into the best night of his life. The girl he’d been dreaming about appears right in front of him on a horridly over crowded train, then pulls him after her at the next stop. Her eyes had pierced straight towards his soul. Her smile seemed to electrify his whole body. That was a smile that you could treasure for the next millennia and the one after that, too.

Camden Town wasn’t his stop, but he followed her off the train without hesitation. What caused him a second of trepidation was to reach out and grab her fingertips as she gestured for him to follow her. But he did reach out to follow her out of the station.

They stood there on the sidewalk, both a little breathless and still laughing.

“I thought I’d never see you again.” He knew it probably sounded dumb, but it was true.

“I can’t believe this.” She laughed again.

He looked around and saw a blue door of a pub. There they could be out of the January wind and finally talk.

“You want to go in?” He motioned with his head towards the door.

She nodded and brushed a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. That gesture reminded him that he was still definitely holding her hand, but there seemed to not be any objection toward it. And as he pulled a chair out for her at a table in the corner, he caught a whiff of that floral perfume.

“I’m Adam.”

“Natalie.”


End file.
